WWF turns to Microsoft to cut costs and carbon

Conservation lobbyist WWF-UK has moved to Microsoft Exchange and Outlook to reduce its IT costs and carbon footprint.

The not-for-profit environmental group had been using Novell Groupwise since 1995, but had concerns about Novell's staying power and the availability of third party support.

David Southern, IT head at WWF-UK, said the company tested several e-mail systems, including Google mail. "We wanted to move to a system that was a market leader and had longevity of product development and lots of support options," he said.

WWF-UK, which has a head office in Surrey and four other UK offices, already had a Microsoft desktop infrastructure.

The recession forced WWF-UK to reduce support costs. Jobs were cut and hardware costs reduced through virtualising servers with VMware.

The group cut IT costs by 15%.

It decided to keep the systems in-house but moved to virtualised servers. This cut the number of physical servers from 16 to 4.

WWF-UK contracted Microsoft partner Bluesource to support its migration to Microsoft and to provide on going services. This was essential in the light of reduced spending on IT support resources.

"While we lack in-house expertise and the resources to ensure 24 hour services, Bluesource can do it."

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